Nugget 6: Personal priorities often cause managers to “Resource bomb” each other, there is nothing actually aggressive or deliberately malicious in this.
Explanation:
It often seems as if some managers are attempting to hog all the resource in a project, and you often see what I call “Resource bombing”, which is when one manager uses their position or the fact that their project is flavour of the month, to rob another project of resource to try and get their deliverables over the line.
For the most part there is nothing deliberate or malicious in this, they are not trying to hurt the other project they are just trying to deliver and feel they don’t have the resources to meet management expectations.
Often confronting them directly and explaining the harm that they are doing to your project will get them to either back off or enable you to manage it between the two of you, then you can both deliver with the limited resources you have. At worst formally talking to them about it shows you are trying to work as a team player, and give a paper trail that allows you to justify part of your non delivery because you have had resources taken off you,
This is a situation where you need to solidly try and fix it not just for your own delivery, but for your team so they are not painted as people that can’t deliver.
Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.